


The Letter

by MannaTea



Series: Rewritten, Reborn, Revived [18]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Forgiveness, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MannaTea/pseuds/MannaTea
Summary: Raine tries to come to terms with her mother's abandonment of her and Genis, but wounds that deep need time to heal.
Series: Rewritten, Reborn, Revived [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/653711
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Letter

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written November 13, 2012. There are some personal headcanons in this story, but nothing over-the-top. I wrote this to tie up the loose end from the game: even though Lloyd promises Raine that he’ll help her look for her mother, he goes off on an Exsphere journey and Virginia is never mentioned again. I always wanted a more…concrete conclusion to that story, so…here it is.

At first glance, it looked like any other letter Lloyd Irving had sent her. On the outside, in his horrendous chicken-scratch, was her name— _Professor Sage_ —and the town the letter had been sent from. It was sealed with a tiny strip of tape.

Something told her it was different than the others. Maybe it was the slanted writing, written in a particular hurry, the way Lloyd often did when he began to run out of time on an exam, or maybe it was the weight of it, just a single page, when he normally could not shut up about his latest adventure.

She balanced her staff across her knees and used her thumb to break the seal as she worried her lower lip between her teeth.

Inside, there was a single sentence:

_Found Virginia_ _please come_ _._

The staff, so carefully placed upon her lap, fell forgotten to the grass as she stood. “Genis!” she called, unable to control the urgency in her voice. “Genis, _now_!”

* * *

Raine thought about her mother as she and Genis hurried to the city Lloyd had posted the letter from. With a rheaird, it might have taken them half a day, but without, it took almost a week. She had time to think. Perhaps too much of it.

“Are you all right?” Genis asked one night as he set up the camp. She found herself snapping to attention, and cocked her head to the side.

“I’m fine,” she said.

But Genis didn’t buy it. Perhaps he knew her better than she gave him credit for. “You always look deep in thought when there’s something wrong,” he said, almost off-handedly. “Care to share, or do you wanna be an iceberg for the rest of your long life?”

“You’re getting too cheeky for your young age,” she said warily, and then sighed. “I’m only thinking. There’s no harm in that, now, is there?”

“Well, with you there _might_ be.” He paused his work and scratched his cheek. “No offense, Sis, but sometimes you think too much.”

She knew what he really meant. Most people considered her something of a pessimist because when she gave something thought, she always looked at the worst possible outcome first. What they failed to realize was that she didn’t do it to be negative. Rather, it was a necessary step to protect herself and those she cared about. If she knew how bad something could be, at least she had the option to prepare for it.

One couldn’t prepare for a surprise.

Her mother’s abandonment of her had been one such instance. She hadn’t seen it coming. There were no big clues, no warning signs—nothing an eleven-year-old would pick up on. She remembered arriving at the island, and the weight of her newborn brother when he was shoved into her arms. _Stay still, Raine. Right here. Don’t move_. She had always been an obedient child, and she trusted her mother’s words. She listened and stayed put. Eventually the Gate shifted and she was sucked through to Sylvarant to fend for herself.

Even knowing her mother’s motives for doing it did not curb the roiling mix of hatred and despair that she felt.

Regal had tried, once, with his calm diplomacy, to explain to her the necessities of forgiveness, because anger could drive a person to the edge, right into the arms of insanity. To say she snapped at him would be an understatement, but she had always had a bit of a temper. In her later apology, she maintained that she had reacted purely on instinct, and meant no malice by it.

His comment still bothered her, though, on some level. Rather, one particular part of it did: his use of the word _insanity_. Regal was clever with words… Had that been intentional? Had he meant to imply that she would end up like her mother: a shadow of herself, cold and alone and crazy?

Genis’s hand on her shoulder startled her. His face was strangely solemn, so she forced a smile for his benefit.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” he said. “Don’t.”

* * *

Lloyd’s face told her everything immediately. Genis was slower to catch on. When their wandering-swordsman friend led them out of the city gate and into a quiet grove of trees, Raine’s suspicions were confirmed, but Genis seemed to want to be in denial when they came to a stop in front of a simple wooden stake in the ground.

“Thank you, Lloyd,” Raine said, softly.

Genis shook his head, eyes wide. “But you said you’d found her,” he managed to say, his expression nothing short of bewildered.

Lloyd hung his head, his brown eyes focused on his feet. “Well…” he began, “I… I mean… Colette and I found her. She didn’t live long.”

“How long?” Raine asked, unsure what kind of answer she wanted to hear.

Lloyd only shook his head. “Professor,” he said, reading her better than he’d read any book in her classroom, “you couldn’t have made it on time, even if you’d flown here straight away.”

After a few minutes, Lloyd returned to Colette, and Raine stared down at her mother’s grave marker with mixed feelings.

Genis broke the silence.

“I didn’t even get to know her,” he whispered.

But Raine did not respond. Her thoughts whirled and rushed about her like a cyclone, picking up thoughts and dropping them back down with startling force.

She had raised Genis, almost since birth, but somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, she had always hoped her parents would return for the two of them. Before his first birthday, he tried to call her “Mama,” and it had broken her heart. “No no no,” she’d said, fervently, “Sister. _Sister_. Can you say _Sister_?”

She had known her mother as well as any eleven-year-old could know a parent, but what good had it done her? There was just enough of a personal attachment there to hurt—to make a comment like Regal’s _hurt_ —but not enough of one to help. She hadn’t been able to admit to anyone that she still felt deeply injured by the whole thing, by something that had happened a long time ago and wasn’t even malicious to begin with.

She wanted to turn to her brother and say, _Be glad_ , but that was needlessly cruel and selfish, even for her. Genis had only ever seen Virginia Sage at her worst. The woman had been holding a raggedy old doll, one Raine herself had carried around as a young girl, and her hand had been over her belly. She had called the doll Raine, and her belly Genis, and Raine had wanted nothing more than to weep at the sight. The mother she had known, and the mother she had imagined from eleven years old until that day, had been nothing like that.

She had expected the woman to look at her with disgust, or hatred, or any number of things, but even in her worst imaginations, she had never guessed that her mother would see her and not even know her.

_Insanity_ , she pondered as Genis knelt next to the grave.

If only it were that easy for her, to lose herself and forget about everything that had ever hurt her.

Maybe that was what Regal had meant by his comment so long ago. For some, it was easy to get lost in grief and anguish and self-loathing; Regal knew that better than anyone.

“I feel a little sad,” Genis admitted, tearing her from her thoughts, “even though I never knew her. I wonder why that is.”

“It’s because you recognize her as your mother.” Raine moved to place her hand on Genis’s shoulder.

“I guess that makes sense. Lloyd was always protective of his mother, even though he couldn’t remember her.”

Silence enveloped them for a long moment, but Raine did not allow her thoughts to wander. Instead, she gave her brother’s shoulder a squeeze and turned on her heel. She couldn’t bear another moment in this place.

It wasn’t long before Genis caught up, his expression serious. “Did you ever forgive her?” he carefully ventured.

She found that she had to think of how to answer this question, and so she paused, lips pursed and eyes closed in thought. “It’s difficult,” she admitted at last. She opened her eyes and locked onto Genis, refusing to let herself look away. He deserved some kind of explanation, after all.

“I remember…birthday celebrations, good food, nice clothing. I remember a…kitten that Mother took in one day and bottle-fed until it regained its strength. I remember hugs and bedtime stories and…” Her voice faltered, and it took her a moment to find it again. “And then I remember you being shoved into my arms, told to stay put, and…” She swallowed, thickly.

“And they never came back,” he finished, looking solemn.

“Yes. You not being able to remember her…might be something of a blessing.”

“But,” he argued, arms gesturing in typical dramatic teenage fashion, “at least you have something to remember her by! I don’t have anything good, not even something as small as a smile.”

She wanted to refute it with a sharp, _You can have the memories, then. I don’t want them._

But she didn’t. She wondered if maybe thinking like that was the path Virginia Sage took. If she had cared even a whit about her children, she must have worried. She must have cried herself to sleep, must have regretted her decision somewhere along the way. Sometimes knowing the worst was better than not knowing anything at all.

She struggled for the right words.

“I need more time,” she finally said. “Some time to think.”

* * *

She returned months later, alone, to the gravesite, and saw that the marker Lloyd had made was covered over in wildflowers and moss. It seemed sort of fitting, in a way.

“It’s not been easy,” she said aloud to the quiet air. “I thought I hated you all these years, hated what you did to me. And to Genis. Do you know…” She sighed, and took a deep breath. “Mother, do you know how hard it was for me to find food? Work? There were times when I didn’t think I would make it and times I resented having to take care of Genis, because he was another mouth to feed and food was hard to come by. Prejudice existed on Sylvarant, too. But…”

She refused to let herself cry even the smallest bit, not now, not when she had spent the majority of her life pushing back tears. She could keep them in just a little while longer.

“I think you made the right choice.”

It wasn’t exactly forgiveness, but acceptance was close enough.

She didn’t know Kate very well, but she knew enough; Kate’s situation could just as easily have been hers, and though Sylvarant hadn’t been truly free, it had been a veritable liberation compared to what her life might have been otherwise.

Reaching that conclusion had been hard. She had believed, for a time, that Sybak fed its half-elves, at least. They didn’t have to worry about each meal, about a place to sleep, about keeping a newborn baby alive. For too long, she felt that she would have preferred that life over the one she had been forced to live.

But her anger gradually abated. She loved her freedom, the choice to give a snappy, surly reply to anyone who said something against her, and that was something she never would have been granted at Sybak.

She had been so busy directing all of her fear and anger and hurt at her mother that she hadn’t realized most of those feelings rightfully should have been directed at the prejudiced worlds.

“My anger was misdirected,” she said, her voice soft and steady. “You were never to blame any more than I was. You were only trying to save us.” Her voice wavered slightly, but she pushed forward. “It was difficult, but we made it. It’s okay. _We’re_ okay.” She wasn’t sure if the last part was directed at Virginia Sage or at herself, but it felt good to say.

And she let it go: the anger, the hurt, the frustration, the whole lot of it.

Nothing happened—nothing magical, at least. The air continued to be calm, the birds carried on with their haphazard songs, but Raine felt something she hadn’t felt in recent memory: contentment, soft and gentle and comforting.

“I wonder if this is what Regal was talking about,” she said, partially to herself.

* * *

At first glance, it looked like any other letter Raine Sage had sent him. On the outside, in her careful but still untidy scrawl, was his name— _Duke Regal Bryant_ —and the town the letter had been sent from. It was sealed with a tiny strip of tape.

Something told him it was different than the others. Maybe it was the careful way the letters were printed, so unlike Raine, for most of her letters were penned in an excited hurry and were only barely legible, or maybe it was the weight of it, just a single page, when she normally wrote tangent after tangent concerning the things she had seen.

Concerned, Regal leaned forward in his desk chair and slipped his favorite blade beneath the tape, breaking the seal on the letter.

Inside, there was a single sentence:

_Thank you._

Confused, he shook his head and opened his mouth. “For what?” he wondered aloud, imagining that it could be for the money he had put into rebuilding Palmacosta’s prestigious academy, or the bridge whose plans were in motion to connect a few of the continents, which would allow for the choice of travel by land _or_ sea.

Never once did it cross his mind that it was in regards to an offhand comment he’d once made in a small attempt to help his friend move beyond a troubled past.

He flipped the letter over and glanced at the city the letter had been sent from: _Iselia_. Did that mean Raine had returned home? Perhaps a visit was in order. There was a chance—however small—that she might divulge the reason for her letter, but even if she didn’t, there was the matter of the bridge plans. He would very much like to share those with her.

“George!” he called, pulling on his suit jacket. “I’m going on a trip. Please hold my mail until I return.”


End file.
